Xtra - The Worlds WORST Broadband ISP

Firstly to the readers, I apologize for the following rant, but this has to be said. If you are living in New Zealand, or considering staying in NZ for any length of time, stay away from Xtra Broadband. They really are the Worlds worst broadband provider.

Broadband internet has over the last several years changed the way the Internet is used for many people around the World.

Rich media such as video, heavy use of flash, and audio have all become standard fare, and enabled citizens throughout most of the Worlds developed countries to enjoy the Internet as it is meant to be - vibrant and interactive.

And what a great change this has been. Now virtually everyone can get a fairly cheap broadband connection with no monthly bandwidth limitations, running anywhere between 1mbit and 25mbit in speed.

Except in New Zealand. Here, we have a company called Xtra, who provide the Worlds WORST broadband connections, with crawling speeds, high prices, and low monthly limits.

As if to add insult to injury, when they were recently forced by public pressure on the Government to address their stone age internet plans, Xtra launched their "Unleashed" broadband service.

Xtra Unleashed Broadband they widely advertised as being super fast, with no limitations as was the case in the past. The Future of the Internet had arrived (as Xtra's advertising slogans pronounced).

Only this was not the case at all.

Xtra have time and time again manipulated the less tech savvy populous of New Zealand into believing that this is what broadband is like everywhere, and this latest "Unleashed" farce is no exception.

With the "Unleashed" broadband plan, you're not allowed to use more than 700mb combined upload/download bandwidth between the hours of 4pm and midnight (the time most people are wanting to sit down and make the most of their broadband connection).

If you do go over this 700mb limit, you are thrown into the "sinbin" for a week, which means constant disconnections from the network (every 5 or 10 minutes in our case), and even SLOWER speeds. Usually considerably slower than dialup internet.

As I work from home, and my work is all done online, the constant disconnections basically mean a week of highly frustrating downtime and constant interruptions from my tasks at hand.

Even if you are not sinbinned, and are using the regular Xtra Unleashed Broadband speeds, it's more than likely that you'll be unable to smoothly stream an MP3, or god forbid, a youtube video.

Xtra also "traffic shape" to the extreme, which means they identify any traffic ports that are not web browser or email traffic, for instance all of the P2P networks, and impose strict limitations on the speed and numbers of connections.

It's not only the audio/video which is being strangled by Xtra's terrible "Unleashed" abomination either. Even connecting to several POP3 email accounts often fails for me now, which I haven't experienced on any other ISP, as does SSH (a tiny very efficient server connection protocol). It is constantly losing connection.

I really can't stress this enough, Xtra's Unleashed Broadband is a complete and utter disgrace, and the fact that their parent company Telecom have had a total monopoly over New Zealand's telco market and infrastructure for so long has in my opinion done my country an enormous disservice.

Xtra have crippled New Zealands connection to the outside World.

I hope I reach some of you before you make the mistake of joining Xtra.

Update:
Looks like I'm not the only one that thinks Xtra is the Worlds worst ISP.

New Zealand's Consumer Institute also lodged an Official complaint with the Commerce Commission and Advertising Standards Authority about Xtra's Go Large broadband plan advertising "unlimited Internet usage at maximum download speeds."

You'll also notice by far the largest portion of Xtra's Wikipedia entry is strong criticism.

Many other bloggers have also stated that Xtra Broadband now officially sucks.